Research Highlights

Perhaps best symbolized by Shakespeare's phrase "All the world's a stage," we are the actors, directors, and audiences of our own lives. Whether you like it or not, we live in a theatrical world. This argument may make you feel uncomfortable. And you may want to think that we don’t usually behave like actors, nor do we watch our lives from the sidelines as some kind of spectator. You may say that we live freely and in control of our lives, and it’s as simple as that.

In recent years, theatre studies have reconsidered human perspectives and worldviews from the ground up. We explore situations where we find ourselves unwittingly caught in a theatrical world where fictional elements subtly sneak into our authentic and genuine lives. These situations can arise in all forms of communication, from the perceptual acts of viewing and listening to our behaviors, actions, and language.

Let me explain using the act of viewing as an example. When we see something, our line of sight is already conditioned by specific mental images and frameworks. The act of trying to see may be regulated by a kind of force that precedes the individual intention. In Europe, that force is said to be found in the development and effects of theatre and media technologies. In modern times, as citizens began to attend the theatre more regularly, many European theatres made their stages deeper with perspective and framing in mind. This evolution of the stage made it possible for the audience to observe the stage and its actors in their entirety, all from their seats. At the same time, it promoted the individual act of seeing. Each audience member sees and thinks about the world from their own orientation. The overt subjectivity of a modern audience was influenced indirectly by theatrical devices that were based on the perspective and framing of the stage.

This kind of influence is also seen in our modern media society. As we acquire more and more information through the Internet, there is a tendency for our worldview to narrow, which may be because we only perceive the images and information that will fit within the frames of our computers and smartphones. We might even call this framing a modern version of theatre equipment. The ubiquity in which you can consume video anytime anywhere has created a "mobile theatre," so to speak, where the visual world can be delivered to anyone with a media device to their own personal theatre. The theatrical framework of such media technology hides the dangers of complacency in skewed judgment.

This invisible theatrical effect runs throughout our everyday communication and behavior. Theatre studies is useful for exploring the effect in all of its breadth and depth because excellent theatre performances often expose its inconspicuous nature. Theatre reflects, from multiple angles, the possibilities, problems, and limitations of the theatrical aspects of daily life by showing a fictional world for the audience to experience. Through graduate coursework that analyzes those performances, we explore the theatrical structures of the world and humanity that are unique to our field. In our quest, we go beyond theatre science to apply the latest findings in philosophy, history studies, literature, aesthetics, media studies, and political science. If all the world’s a stage, then theatre studies can be described as a comprehensive academic stage with the world’s many disciplines as its actors.